Gom Mirian
Nigeria’s quest to attract major international research grants has received a massive boost following the commitment by the European Union (EU) to provide €440,000 to support shortlisted research teams in the country under the Horizon Europe Project.
The grant, which is aimed at improving the quality of research and innovation in the country’s universities, was announced by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), which has been spearheading efforts to attract international funding for Nigerian scholars.
Mr Tope Toogun, who heads TETFund’s team on the Horizon Europe programme, made this known on Thursday while briefing the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc. Sunny Echono, on ongoing efforts to ensure Nigerian researchers’ participation in the globally renowned research project.
Toogun lamented that despite the rich human resources in the country, researchers in Nigeria had before now taken the back seat in accessing grants for the EU Horizon project but the situation is now changing for the better following TETFund’s engagement with the EU and its decision to set up a team to address challenges preventing Nigerian researchers from participating in the project.
“It is embarrassing that Nigeria with all our intellectual capital, cannot participate in Horizon. The EU works in terms of a 7-year framework, the current one is Horizon Europe, the previous framework was called Horizon 2020 and it ran from 2013 to 2020.
“Africa got about 350 projects, out of which South Africa alone cornered 146, Egypt and Morocco got between 50 and 70, and Kenya got 46, Nigeria was not on the radar. It doesn’t mean we have not been participating, we have been on the sideline
“We have shortlisted an initial 60 research teams from about 400 applications and the EU Commission has committed to the provision of a facility of 440, 000 euros in technical assistance to support the development of capacity in what we come up with in this programme that TETFund has initiated….,” he said.
On his part, TETFund’s Executive Secretary affirmed its full commitment to ensuring Nigerian researchers are competitive in the International arena, adding that “the move is to ensure that Nigerian researchers break this glass ceiling because it is very embarrassing when we read and see international publications that smaller African countries, countries like South Africa, like Egypt, Algeria and even Kenya tend to be participating more and getting more research grants from these development partners, particularly the EU.”
